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Sakuran (さくらん)

Memoirs of a Geisha + Tokyo Fruits = Sakuran

Sakuran (movie poster) I've been curious about Sakuran ever since I saw the enormous poster of the movie above Shibuya square in Tokyo.

If ever a film could sashay, it would be Sakuran. Helmed by first-time director Ninagawa Mika, Sakuran is a gorgeously luscious period film set in the Edo period courtesan district of Yoshiwara. Ninagawa brings her photographer's eye to the big screen, and the result is a film bursting with vibrant energy, unabashed sexuality, and an exuberant passion for life. Straying from convention, the film features a pop rock soundtrack from Shiina Ringo and an almost over-the-top beauty with its flamboyant kimonos and theatrically vibrant palette.

Drawing from Anno Moyoco's original manga, Ninagawa vividly paints the life and times of the courtesan in all its colors - laughter and tears, excitements and banalities, simple dreams and complex emotions. In showing both the reveled and the reviled, the film stays refreshingly free of sweeping statements about prostitution, and instead lets the characters speak for themselves.

Tsuchiya Anna of Kamikaze Girls stars as the film's feisty heroine, and she brings to the role a brash attitude and bold sex appeal that cinema sees too little of. Alongside Tsuchiya is an illustrious supporting cast including Kimura Yoshino (Nezu no Ban), Ando Masanobu (Big Bang Love, Juvenile A), Narimiya Hiroki (Last Quarter), Kanno Miho (Dolls), and Shiina Kippei (Shinobi).

Sakuran (さくらん) by Mika Ninagawa. Anna Tsuchiya, Kippei Shiina, Yoshino Kimura and Hiroki Narimiya

Movie Review

Sakuran (manga cover) While Sakuran is Mika Ninagawa's directorial debut, it's definitely not her first time behind a camera. Currently one of the most famous Japanese fashion photographer, her signature hyper-saturated style can be seen in Vogue, Elle, Harper's Bazaar, GQ, Marie Claire and many others.

According to Michael Arias who shares the same Producer, the Mika look is based on a discontinued AGFA film stock that she's hoarded. The sense of colors in Sakuran is absolutely breathtaking, and that special film captures incredibly rich reds.

The movie is helped along by Anna Tsuchiya fashion model turned punk rocker and now actress, who looks like a Japanese Christina Ricci, and acts with the same rebellious intensity, bringing that rock'n'roll edge to the part of Kihoya. Anna's effortless sex-appeal, combined with Mika's photography and the modern score by Ringo Shiina is what makes the juxtapositon with the Edo period work wonderfully.

The result takes some of the same plot point of Memoirs of a Geisha, but instead of a watered-down westernized view of the world of a Japanese courtesan, we get a hyper-sensorial Tokyo Fruits version, taking the same approach as Sofia Coppola's Marie-Antoinette, but sparing us the high-fructose corn syrup laced acting of Kirsten Dunst.